Thank you post

A million thanks to everyone who came for my graduation.

My parents.

My brother.

My relatives.

Ah Heng (white shirt), my uncle (brown shirt) and my aunt (light green shirt)

Amy.

Amy’s parents.

And my friends.

Thanks for the flowers and gifts.

And all the best to those who graduated.

It’s been a memorable graduation for me.

Thank you, Terima Kasih, Xie Xie.

Some more extra photos:

Pity my mom who helped me to carry my flowers and gifts while I went around taking photos

People mountain people sea

Trying to throw our mortar board but went not quite well...

My graduation

After some si pek troublesome processes of registering myself for my own convocation on 23rd August 2008, I finally can go on stage and receive my degree certificate after a 5 years wait.

I woke up at 5.30a.m. that morning to prepare myself for the convocation ceremony, brought my parents to have breakfast at the nearest McDonald’s at 6.30a.m. and arrived at UNITEN Bangi, sorry, UNITEN Putrajaya at 7.30a.m. sharp.

I thought I was already late when I finally arrived at the registration counter around 7.45a.m. after the some stupid guards asked me to park my car a million kilometers away from the hall, but all the graduates only arrived after 8a.m., way behind the schedule, typical Malaysians.

The coordinator had a hard time asking all of us to register ourselves and queue up to enter the hall as all of us already started to take photos and chat around. Only after the coordinators became tulan and shouted at us then only all of us started to move into the hall, typical Malaysians.

After entering the hall, the Chancellor of UNITEN arrived and the convocation ceremony started. We sang our national anthem Negaraku and the UNITEN anthem. I don’t know what the name of the UNITEN anthem is, I can only sing according to the lyrics shown from the projectors.

The ceremony kicked off in a truly Malaysian style: Loooooooooong speeches by the VIPs. I think they were trying to make us graduates sleep rather than give us some advices and motivations. Luckily we were allowed to bring in our cell phones and cameras, almost all of us graduates cannot tahan the long speeches and went on to do our own stuff like chatting with each other, text messaging and taking photos. I did all that and I only managed to stay awake for a while only.

The Loooooooooog speeches

After the Loooooooooog speeches, finally its time for the REAL convocation ceremony. Too bad the ceremony was also damn boring. I just sat there watching other people going up to the stage, bowed to the Chancellor, received the certificate, and then going down the stage. After watching a few hundreds of people doing the same thing over and over again, I wished that some people fall down on the stage so that I can have a good laugh.

Finally after a long wait, the coordinators asked our Accounting Degree batch to get ready to go on stage. I was then fully awake and had a rush of adrenalin wanted to go on stage badly to receive a piece of paper that I’ve been waiting for 5 years.

Half an hour later my name was announced, I walked on stage with an average speed, trying not to fall down or else I’ll be the hot topic of UNITEN for the next 1 billion years. I walked towards a marked spot where I had to bow to the Chancellor, I bowed cin-cai-ly as I don’t want my not-so-tight mortar board to drop. Then I walked towards the Chancellor, shook hand with him, said thank you, received the certificate, turned over and smiled to the camera with a smile that I’ve been practicing for a long time, and then walked down the stage with a relieve that I didn’t mess it up.

I thought I made it perfectly, not until I received my photos the next day…

I smiled stupidly.

Shit.

After I walked down the stage, I was so nervous that I needed to pee. Just as I am going to walk past the door, a coordinator stopped me and said that I am not allowed to go to the toilet.

WTF, where can stop people to go to pee one? I don’t know what their reason is for this but I bet it’s got something to do with keeping the crowd in hall so that they won’t lose face to the VIPs. Luckily I have an exceptionally well-functioned bladder to keep my “yellow tea” in store for more than 5 hours.

I then got back to my place with a tulan face and open the certificate book to check out my own degree certificate.

As I told you, UNITEN is a very “FINE” university.

My "degree certificate"

The certificate I received from the hands of the Chancellor was actually a warning letter where UNITEN will FINE us if we return our academic robe late. The original degree certificate will only be given to us after we returned the academic robe in a good condition.

More detail and precise than accounting standards, don't play play

The warning letter stated very clearly the FINE structure where we’ll be fined RM5 per day for returning the academic robe late. I think it’s even clearer and easily understood than the accounting textbooks I used to study.

What a FINE university and what a FINE way to end my UNITEN days.

More photos coming up in the next post.

Tasik Chini

Tasik Chini is the second largest fresh water lake in Malaysia, it is made up of a series of 12 lakes which in total is 12,565 acres. I have absolutely no idea how big is 12,565 acres but I can guarantee you that Tasik Chini is bigger than my house’s toilet.



Tasik Chini is situated in Pahang and is just 60km away from Muadzam Shah so it was in my “must visit list” before I graduated.

The map of Tasik Chini

When me and my friends arrived at Tasik Chini, what we can see was just a simple hotel beside the lake, no water sports or babes in bikinis playing volleyball. Just when I started to feel a bit bored loitering around the lakeside a friendly resort staff approached us and started to give us some knowledge of Tasik Chini. He told us so many things until I forgot almost half of what he said. He then told us that we can see a whole lot more beautiful scenery by taking a boat ride around Tasik Chini.

So being a bunch of naïve students at that time, we fall into the staff’s “marketing trap”, we decided to go on a boat trip around the lake.



After we got on the boat, the guide took us to another side of the lake and we instantly fall in love with the nice view. It was the view of a big peaceful lake where you can see the reflection of the sky on the surface of the lake.






When I look down into the lake, the water was like black in color, so I assume that the lake was very very very deep, I then asked the guide about the depth of the lake and the guide just said that he don’t know. He said that many expedition teams from local and overseas had been here to survey the depth and the ecosystem of the lake but ended up failed or one of their team members drown to death. It was because of the huge amount of water plants inside the lake where divers were stuck inside of it.



I don’t know how true the story is but Tasik Chini’s view definitely surprised me. The time we went there was the lotus season and some part of the lake was full of lotus flowers. The view of lotus and the calm lake view definitely let me forgot about the coming examinations which I haven’t started studying.







Having enough of the big lake view, the guide took us to another part of Tasik Chini. It was the part of lake which was canopied by the rainforest.




There was a big hole by the lake side inside the canopied area where legend says that there was a damn huge snake inside the lake and the snake crawled to land at night. The snake was so huge that the hole that it created at the lakeside can fit two adults.

If the snake was real, I think it can swallow a space shuttle

The boat ride also included the visit to the Orang Asli’s village.

The Orang Asli kids with Susan, Amy and Tiffany (from left to right with colorful clothes)

When we reached there, we were welcomed by the friendly Orang Asli. Their village is just a few simple atap huts, no Astro, no computers, not even a proper gas stove, but yet the people there were satisfied at their standard of living and never had a thought of leaving for the cities, I guess this is how people have different levels of satisfaction. For me, my satisfaction level is at where I have all the supercars like Falali and Lembugini in my garage.

One of the old man in the Orang Asli village was kind enough to teach us how to hunt using their weapon of mass destruction.




A tube with poisonous sharp needle.



The old man let us try using it with a non-poisonous needle (just in case some people shoot it on other people’s buttocks) by targeting at a soft board set up nearby. I tried it and I think that I did quite well.

I seriously think that I can participate in the Beijing Olympic games

The boat trip ended after the Orang Asli village visit. When we came back on shore we saw something interesting.

A black and white squirrel.

The guide said that this kind of squirrel is called the Pahang squirrel, because its fur color matches the color of the Pahang state flag and can be only found in Pahang.

Pahang state flag

Now I wonder how Perlis squirrel will looks like…

Perlis state flag

Preparation for my graduation

I finished my studying days in UNITEN on mid of April 2008.

After studying very hard for 5 years to get my accounting degree, I am looking forward to attend my own graduation day where I can throw the “graduation square hat”, or whatever they called it, to mark the end of my studying days.

Studying very hard

My graduation is set on 23rd of August 2008 and I am already very excited about it.

But as one of the leading private universities in Malaysia, UNITEN decided that they wanted to give the students more sufferings before “releasing” them.

A month after I finished my FINAL final examinations, I received a snail mail from UNITEN regarding on how to register myself for the graduation day.

Macam-macam documents, just to attend a graduation ceremony

It was a simple letter judging by its looks, but hey, never judge a damn letter by its damn looks. I got a headache once I opened and read it.

To simplify things, UNITEN requires us to go through a lot of damn processes, just to attend a graduation day.

The first document in the letter was a cheque attached with a statement where UNITEN returned me the extra fees I paid during my studies, it was a RM330 cheque and I was glad that they returned it but not taking it as a donation from students.

My joy was short lived, ruined by the next document. The next document was basically 2 forms and a letter. I was required to fill in both the forms and pass one of it to the admin staffs at UNITEN after I pay RM150 at the finance department for the graduation fees. These two things have to be done before 1st August 2008. So I have to apply a 1 day annual leave just to go to UNITEN to pay them the damn RM150 and give them the damn form.

What the fuak, can’t they just minus it out from the extra money of RM330 and pay me back the balance of RM180 (RM330 – RM150)? Sounds stupid isn’t it? Seems like UNITEN is short of a good accountant.

The third document nearly made me ki siao, UNITEN became “cleverer” and asked us to collect our academic attire for the graduation between the period 19th to 22nd of August 2008. And there will be a rehearsal on 22nd August 2008.

I don’t think that I can do these two things one shot on 22nd of August, because almost all my seniors told me that we have to collect our academic attire on the first day (19th August) because if I go collect it on the last day (22nd August) all the “leftovers” academic attires’ sizes will be either too big or too small as the sizes are limited.

Two more annual leaves wasted just for the stupid graduation processes. One day for collecting academic attire and one day for rehearsal. UNITEN is definitely the BEST University in the entire universe.

In total, I have to take 3 days of annual leave just to settle everything so that I can sit inside the hall, wait for my name to be called and go on the stage and take my certificate. It’s just a simple graduation and UNITEN made it si pek difficult.

I don’t understand why UNITEN can’t just make all this stuff be done in ONE day and ONE place? I am not complaining about wasting my precious annual leaves to settle these things, I am complaining about the complicated and lengthy processes that made us fresh graduates look bad in the job market.

Bear in mind that we just started to work for only less than 4 months and are considered new joiners in the companies or firms. And yet we have to take 3 SEPARATE days of annual leave in one month. This is definitely not the best way to impress your boss as a new joiner.

Imagine your boss saying: “Wah… kerja tak sampai 4 bulan sudah mau guna semua annual leave kah?”

If UNITEN doesn’t want it’s graduates to leave a bad impression in the job market or got fired during the first few months of job, they better think of a 1-Stop solution for graduates to settle everything easily and can attend the graduation ceremony without losing their jobs.

Please lah, live it up to the name of one of the best private universities in Malaysia, and I really mean it.